Code Geass: The Black Princess
by RandytheBlackKnight
Summary: Leloucia vi Britannia, former eleventh princess of the Holy Britannian Empire returns to her former home with seeking vengeance. But not all is as it seems in the Halls of Pendragon, and many players all move towards different goals. So yeah Fem!Lelouch in the vein of Code Geass the Prepared Rebellion and Dauntless. This is rated M for a reason people, you've been warned.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One: The Princess and her Knight

Tokyo Settlement, Area 11 2016 a.t.b

Leloucia vi Britannia was discontent with her life, the realization struck her randomly as she sat in the side car of her friend Rivalz's motorcycle, returning to Ashford Academy after yet another win in the illegal gambling rings of the Area's nobles. Of course she told herself that it was to get money for eventually rebelling against her father, Charles zi Britannia, and the Holy Empire of Britannia that ruled a third of the world with an iron fist, but the more she finally stopped fantasizing and thought about her plans objectively, the more unlikely they seemed. _Hell even the gambling is just for fun now days, it was useful at first to get the business acquisitions and investments going, but now what I make off of this isn't even a drop in the bucket compared to what I get playing the market._

It was true at only sixteen and a half years old she was already a multi-millionaire and damn close to being a billionaire, she'd played the markets under the alias L.L, the initials of her assumed identity of Leloucia Lamperouge, and now controlled a megacorporation and several smaller, but still very large companies across the globe. She had the funds to rebel, and could probably even hire enough mercenaries to stand a chance of winning, but she knew her main problem was that she lacked a power base. _And the way things are going I'll never get one, never get revenge for Mother and Nunnally… Damn it, I need allies, and more importantly political clout!_

As her existential crisis continued Rivalz spoke up, "Hey Leloucia, what do you want to do when you get older?" That gave her pause, as she tried to think of an answer that wouldn't indicate her plans, but then she realized she actually didn't have any plans, only increasingly vague goals with no clear path to get to them. _What do I want? Revenge? Justice? Power? Or have I just been using Nunnally and my Mother as an excuse for all these years? Telling myself that I'm not evil when in fact, I want nothing more than to see the world burn._ As she began to ponder her morality she answered her friend's question in the most honest way she could, "I honestly have no idea, Rivalz, I thought I knew, but now I'm not so sure anymore."

"Well don't sweat it, someone like you can do anything you set your mind to." The look on the bluenet's face was one of someone stating an immutable fact of life, "Me, I'm probably gonna just end up in some white collar job in the business sector."

 _He really believes in me doesn't he? If only he knew, but he's right, I_ can _do it; I will burn Britannia for myself, and remake it for Nunnally's memory. But the way I've been going about it is entirely wrong! Now then, Clovis has another ball planned for next month and will probably send an invitation to L.L. to try and get the 'reclusive eccentric' to make a public appearance and boost his image. That gives me just enough time to get a power base going here. That Code R thing that bought all of that medical and computer equipment through all those proxies sounds promising enough._

"If that's the case then I'll just hire you myself Rivalz." She smiled up at her friend, "And don't sell yourself short like that, you're a rare kind of person."

He beamed as he looked onto the road, and seeing her friend's smiling face she came to a realization, she didn't give a damn about anything other than those she cared about, the rest of the world could burn for all Leloucia cared, so long as those she cared about were safe and content.

"Hey Rivalz, wanna see something cool?" She asked with a smirk, "Head over to the Red Star Industries building, trust me you'll love this."

"…Okay?" Rivalz's response was part affirmation, part question, and part exclamation.

It took a surprisingly short amount of time to get half way across the settlement even with traffic being relatively light and Rivalz managing to get on the freeway that took them almost directly to their destination. As they neared the building, and Rivalz slowed down to match the lower speed limit for the area, they coasted towards a large office tower, matte grey and steel only broken by the company logo, a red star with ten uneven points and the letters RS in black at the center.

"So what now? I mean, it's not like we can just waltz into the headquarters of a megacorp." He expressed his bemusement at the situation.

"Yes we can." She stated, "What, did you think I'd just been sitting on all that money I've won?"

"What do you…?" He started to ask.

"Just find a good place to park and all will be revealed shortly." Leloucia interrupted him.

Shrugging, he pulled his motorcycle into an empty spot in front of the entrance fumbling around in his pockets to get change for the meter, only for Leloucia to take out a credit card, swipe it through a nearly hidden card slot and deposit enough money for several hours. "I don't think either of us are going to be getting back to school today, don't worry, I'll take care of Milly."

Rivalz nodded, not really sure of what else to do in his current situation, or even what exactly his current situation even exactly was. After a few seconds of thinking he decided to follow his friend as she sauntered over to the revolving doors to the building.

Entering the lobby, the two were greeted figuratively by a smooth color scheme of mid-grey with cool red serving to accent it, and in a more literal sense by a black haired male secretary in a rather nice suit sitting on the other side of a reception desk. "Oh, hello L.L, pretty rare to see you at this time of day or during the week in general. But, given that uniform I'm pretty sure I can guess why that is." The man teased.

"Oh hush up Gregory, like anyone would believe you if you said the great L.L was still attending school." Leloucia smoothly fired back.

"Pfft, like I'd tell anyone, you happen to be able to fire the people who are allowed to fire me with impunity, and this job is the only thing that keeps my daughter in the school she's going to."

"Wait, you mean you're…?" Rivalz managed to sputter out after about a minute of doing a fine impression of a fish.

"L.L, the eccentric businesswoman who never makes public appearances, constantly turns down the Viceroy's invitations, and who very rapidly climbed from obscurity to be one of the richest people in Area 11, yep." She explained, enjoying her friend's shock, "This isn't even the best part, just wait until you see what's in my office." Leloucia walked over towards the elevator on the far end of the lobby, Rivalz dumbly following behind her, "Oh, and Gregory, do you mind calling up Rebecca please? I have a deal I want to make."

"Of course Ms. L.L, just try not to break the boy." The Secretary answered.

"I think we're already past the point of no return on that one Gregory." She called back as the doors closed, hitting the button for the fourty-ninth floor she turned to her still shell shocked friend.

"You know, this is mostly thanks you." She said "I think it was the third or fourth time we'd cut school to go gamble, you asked me what I was doing with the money, and I realized that I wasn't doing anything with it, just sitting on several hundred thousand pounds, doing absolutely nothing at all. So I started investing, playing the market and slowly chipping away at this company's stock, until six months ago I was just the majority owner, but now, I am the only owner."

"Wait, wait, wait, so you own, the entirety of Red Star Industries, an international megacorporation, because you managed to buy out all of the stock?"

"Well that and I'm majority shareholder of three other corporations, instigated a hostile takeover of another, bought out a fifth, and I'm a major investor in various projects in the EU, Chinese Federation, Britannia and even Australia."

"Why though? And how? You're sixteen for god's sake!" Rivalz was becoming more and more shocked by the minute.

"The why of it is something that I'm currently reevaluating, and as for the how of it, well House Lamperouge might be a minor noble family with only one surviving member and no holdings but I still get the benefits of the title, among those is the ability to do a lot of things years earlier than would normally be legal." Leloucia explained

"Then, why even bother gambling? Hell why even bother with school at all, you probably have more money than most people will ever see in their whole lives." Rivalz had somewhat calmed down from his earlier shock.

"Because it's fun hanging out with all of you, even if I was a bit wary about Nina at first. That's sort of why I'm showing you this, I've kept a lot of secrets from you guys, but I'm starting to see there's no point to them. Or rather, I had thought keeping them would help me, only to now realize that hiding like I have been is only hindering me." She paused as she looked at the steadily increasing floor count, "I don't really know what to do with that, being perfectly honest I brought you here on little more than impulse, I just need some time to think about everything." Of course she had been thinking of 'everything' the whole conversation, going over a long since discarded plan with a new eye, and finding it much more realistic than the previous ones she'd worked towards, the more the exiled princess thought about and tweaked it, the more she realized that she'd only discarded it in the first place out of stubborn pride.

Then the elevator dinged and opened, breaking her out of her thoughts as she exited and led her friend through the various important offices that occupied the same floor as her own, it was significantly higher class than most office spaces, each door was solid oak, and the walls were painted a somewhat heavy red, blending in nicely with the doors, with the color continued to the carpets to contrast with the wooden ceiling and bring the area together.

The only differences in the outward appearance of her own office and the rest were the small lobby outside of it, complete with expensive black leather chairs, and the secretary's large desk to the left of the door. Sitting there typing away at some form or email, was Rebecca Wright, a thin, blonde woman with light green eyes. She wore a dark grey blazer, with a matching skirt over a white button up blouse with a blood red tie, and a black rimmed pair of glasses. As the two approached the office she looked up from her work to acknowledge them, "Ms. Lamperouge, there are several things that you need to sign off on, as well as the report from the expansion in Europe that you requested waiting in your office." She paused for breath before continuing, "Viceroy Clovis has also sent an invitation to his St. Darwin's day ball, I was just drafting a polite refusal, as per your normal response."

"Actually I think I'll attend this one, please thank him for the invitation and express my excitement to finally be able to attend one of his functions. Oh, and if you could contact Margrave Jeremiah Gottwald, I would like to speak to him about mutual interests in the homeland as well as here in Area 11." Lelouica instructed her secretary, though now that she thought of it, she would make an excellent personal assistant once her plans got going.

The older woman's face only showed her surprise for a split second before she schooled her features into a neutral expression once more, "Very well is there anything else you need?"

"Not at the moment no, unfortunately this next couple of months is rapidly shaping up to be a very busy time for us, I'm sure it will go down in the history books, but the hours we'll have to pull will be murder none the less." Leloucia stated.

"I'm sure that just you appearing at a ball will go down in the history books ma'am, but don't worry, I'll make sure you don't accidentally schedule two meetings at once." The secretary spoke with a tone that betrayed both levity and iron willed determination.

"Remind me to give you a raise Ms. Wright, you certainly deserve it." Leloucia gave a warm smile to her secretary as she opened the office door for Rivalz, who gave the woman a polite nod before entering the room.

The office completely broke from the color scheme of the rest of the building, its theme being dark colors with metallic highlights. The walls and ceiling were a dark grey, that, while not too close to black, it was far from white. The carpet was a dark purple color that seemed to drain the light from the room, where the back wall would be there was instead a massive window overlooking the settlement all the way out to the harbor. All of furniture was black with either silver or gold wherever appropriate, the bookshelves, wooden file cabinet in the corner, even the chairs followed this convention. Despite the rather gothic color scheme, everything seemed to fit into what one would expect to find in a normal office CEO or not, everything that is save the desk, it was shaped like an overly large L with metal strips of some function in places that impeded the use of most of the surface facing the door, with what little that could be used there taken up by a large phone in the style of the old windups, though with actual buttons, and a picture Rivalz couldn't see from his position.

He watched as Lelouica walked around to sit on the chair, she then tapped a button he'd failed to notice in his examination of the desk. He quickly realized the purpose of the metal strips across the desk, they were holographic projectors, a keyboard appeared above the desk, larger than any he'd seen before and with so many buttons he was half convinced that at least a quarter of them served no purpose beyond looks. Then a password screen appeared in front of her briefly, as her fingers flew across the keyboard to input it and it was swiftly replaced with six screens of varying sizes, the main screen in the middle was by far the largest, half again as large as the next biggest screen, and was clearly the primary workspace. The other five hovered around it at varying angles and seemed to so constantly updating graphics and numbers that all meant nothing to Rivalz.

"Wow, wait, isn't this that computer that Nina's been obsessing over for the last few weeks?" He asked

"Yes it is, this is bleeding edge technology, cost me several million pounds to get this, but it was worth every cent I assure you." She gave a small smile, "Think that getting Nina one would be good present for her?"

"Dude, she'd probably worship the ground you walk on just for the chance to see one, let alone own one!" He exclaimed

"Good, now then, on to why I actually brought you here," she pulled open a drawer and took out a remote, pressing a button, Rivalz heard a feint hissing to his left, only to see part of the wall sliding away to reveal a wine cooler. "Well go on," she smirked at him.

Rivalz took out one of the bottles briefly reading the label before his face was overcome by a look a reverence, "this, this is a Bellerose 1926." A little known fact about Rivalz was that he and his mother were both collectors of rare and vintage alcohols; in fact Rivalz used that knowledge to leverage himself a part time job as a bartender at one of the more pompous establishments in town.

"There are only twenty bottles of this in existence!" He held the bottle of red wine like it was one of the most precious things in existence, which given the rarity of it wasn't too much of an exaggeration.

"The storm that destroyed the rest ruined the Bellerose family finically and they ended up going to Euro-Britannia to try to turn their fortunes, they're doing moderately well now days but they've never operated a vineyard again." Lelcouica said, "It's yours now, Rivalz, hurry up and take it home, and don't worry I'll convince Ruben, err, Dean Ashford to excuse you for the rest of the day."

He carefully put the bottle down before latching on to her in a bear hug, "Thank you, thank you, thank you! My mom is gonna flip when she sees this! You are the best friend a guy could ask for!"

Leloucia for her part chuckled and held her friend close, "Pfft, yeah right, besides, what better way to celebrate five hundred games together?"

Rivalz broke the embrace, and profusely thanked her several more times as he held the gift close to his chest and walked out the door. Leloucia smiled, allowing herself a few minutes to bask in the glow. _Yes, my friends, my new family, for you I will burn the world; burn away anything that could hurt you. I will let nothing, not even my own pride get in the way!_ She looked at the picture on her desk, depicting Nunnally, Suzaku and herself all smiling and happy, taken only a few short days before everything went to hell. _Now my sister is dead and I have no idea what happened to Suzaku… I'm sorry, I know you'd both hate what I plan to do, but I won't let that stop me!_

A knock on her door broke Leloucia from her dark thoughts, "Enter," no sooner than she'd said it did Rebecca walk through the door "Ms. Lamperouge, Margrave Gottwald indicated that he would be here around four." The secretary spoke, reliable as ever.

"Thank you Rebecca, you're a wonderful help." The younger girl spoke

"Ms. Lamperouge if I may?" At her employer's nod she continued, "That uniform, you go to Ashford Academy correct?" It was less of a question and more a statement but Lelouica gave an affirmative "yes" anyways. "Then, no disrespect meant, but shouldn't you be at school rather than here? I'm told Ashford has a rather strict attendance policy."

Leloucia's heart warmed slightly from her ever loyal secretary's concern, if Sayoko was an overprotective mother bear, then Rebecca Wright was like a concerned older sibling. "I'm actually a ward of the Ashfords, so Ruben cuts me some slack…" Leloucia drifted off for a minute, before chuckling, "unfortunately if everything goes as planned I likely won't be able to attend anymore after the ball."

"I see…" She didn't really see but decided not to question her boss's plans, for now, "Would you like me to have some food brought up? It is a good time for lunch." She instead chose to vent her worrying nature in another fashion.

"No thank you, I ate while I was out with Rivalz." Leloucia responded

"Very well, Ms. Lamperouge, let me know if you need anything else." Rebecca left the room and returned to her work.

Sighing Leloucia quickly decided to change out of her Ashford uniform, using the remote to close the wine cooler in the wall and open a much larger panel, revealing a full walk in closet, though that was somewhat of an exaggeration as there only barely enough room to get changed. But it sufficed for her purposes, really only containing three spare suites for times like this when she couldn't actually come dressed in one. Discarding her uniform with a mental note to remember to take it home with her, she grabbed a suit, black, dress shoes, pants and tailcoat, with silver buttons, and a purple color on the inside one could see via the tails, a white button up and purple tie that brought it together.

Checking herself in the mirror she was somewhat shocked to see she looked strikingly similar to her mother, her own raven hair was much shorter, going a little past her shoulder blades and much straighter, and her breasts, only B cups were smaller than her mothers, her hips were less developed and she was much thinner, her semi-athletic life style, while leaving her more fit than the average person, not that that helped her abysmal stamina, was not were near as form shaping as Marianne's.

Still despite all these differences Lelouica couldn't help but wonder if the image in the mirror was what her mother had seen at sixteen. _Strange how I've never actually taken the time to really_ look _, always trying to hide, to blend in, and yet now, I can see it. I wonder if Nunnally would have looked similar._

Shaking herself out of her thoughts she finished changing into her suit, and went back to her desk, checking the time as she closed the hidden closet, only one forty-five, that left her more than enough time to get some things done before Gottwald arrived. Turning to her phone she dialed the number for Ruben's office, pulling up a report from an R&D project as she waited.

" _Ruben Ashford here_." The older man's terse greeting sent her into a fit of giggles before she managed to speak

"Hello Ruben, it's Lelouica…" She hesitated, not quite sure how to put her message into words, "Listen, could you get Milly and Sayoko in there and put it on speaker? I've made a decision that they're not going to like."

" _Might I ask what exactly you're planning? You didn't get caught gambling did you?"_ Concern filled the voice of her guardian.

"No, but speaking of that, do you mind excusing Rivalz Cardemonde for everything he's missed today? I gave him a gift that isn't exactly something he can take onto campus with him."

She heard a sigh through the phone, _"Very well, I'll call you back when they're in here, but I expect an explanation young lady."_ The line went dead and Leloucia busied herself going over the report she'd pulled up, spending the next ten minutes reading through it and approving the project head's request for a slight budget increase.

She had just been about to pull up another report when her phone rang, quickly picking up she went to answer only to hear Milly's voice, _"Okay Lelouica, what did you do."_

" _Lady Ashford please calm down, I'm sure that Lady Leloucia hasn't done anything dangerous,"_ Sayoko tried to appease the Ashford heiress.

"It's less about what I've done and more about what I'm going to do, Clovis has invited me, or rather L.L, to his St. Darwin's Day ball next month and I will be attending. I will be returning to the fold of the Royal Family." Lelouica said with finality.

" _Lelouica,"_ Ruben's voice broke through the shocked shout of "What!?" Milly greeted the revelation with, _"I know some of the family has been trying to pressure you, but you don't have to do this, there are other ways for the Ashford family to regain our titles."_

" _Mistress,"_ Sayoko was trying her hand, _"It is too dangerous, please, don't do this, it's not too late to just refuse like you do every other invitation."_

Milly's response was the bluntest, in her typical fashion, _"Leloucia vi Britannia, have you gone completely and utterly_ insane _!? Six years you've been hiding from the Imperial family and you intend to just waltz back to Pendragon like it's nothing? You'll be lucky if you aren't executed let alone actually accepted by the Emperor!"_

"I know what I'm doing Milly, and I'm not doing this just to get the your family's titles back, though I will try my hardest to do that, I'm doing this because it's the only option that has a chance of me completing my goals. My father, the nobles of Pendragon, they are the ones who killed my sister, they took my world from me, and if they could they would take away everything else too. I will see them _burn_ before I let that happen." She responded to Milly's outburst.

There was a brief pause on the other end of the line before Ruben finally spoke _"You intend to make a bid for the throne…"_ then he laughed, the kind of laugh produced by those who didn't really know what to feel, pride, anger, sadness, joy, and a million other things Leloucia couldn't identify colored the sound. _"You are just like Marianne you know that? You're so much like her it's uncanny. Whatever you need of me Leloucia, just ask and I'll do everything in my power to give it to you."_

"Thank you Ruben," She smiled, "and Milly, Sayoko? I'm sorry, but there isn't any other way. I've even found a good candidate for a Knight, if you want to come over and meet him, then be at the Red Star Building at five."

" _Fine, but we are going to have words about this later Lelouica vi Britannia, we are going to have words."_ Said exiled princess flinched, it wasn't often Milly got truly angry, but like any of her moods, it was a terrifying sight to behold.

" _I will serve and protect you no matter what Leloucia."_ Sayoko said, though everyone could tell she wasn't comfortable with the idea of someone else protecting her charge.

"Thank you Sayoko, well, I have some reports to go over before the meeting I told you about so I'll let you go. Oh, and before I forget ,Ruben do you mind getting some numbers on what it would cost and how long it would take to get the Ashford Foundation's Military R&D and Manufacturing facilities going again?"

" _Hmm, I could get you some tentative estimates by the end of the week, and more precise numbers by the end of the month. But Lelouica, the Ashfords might be a big player in the civilian business but military Knightmare frames are another thing entirely. Still though, demand for civilian frames is going down, so I may be able to have a few of the existing factories converted."_ Ruben answered, _"But, Milly has to get back to her final period and I have to give Mr. Cardemonde the day off, goodbye, and please be careful Leloucia."_

"I will Ruben, I promise." She said before hanging up the phone, turning her attention to the work of running a megacorporation in the meantime.

* * *

Margrave Jeremiah Gottwald was many things, but at the moment, happy was not one of them, frustrated though, that definitely was. _Six years, Six years I've been searching and not a single trace has been found of the princesses!_ That was the crux of his problem; originally his efforts to find the wayward royals had enjoyed the full support of Prince Clovis. Now though after six years of finding nothing Prince Clovis had given up the search, the only one besides himself who even still believed the two were alive was Princess Euphemia, and as much as he appreciated her continued support, she was stuck in the homeland and couldn't really help in a meaningful way. Now he gets a call from the reclusive L.L about "mutual interests", part of him hoped against hope that it would be the break he so desperately needed, another part realized that Leloucia was a genius, and if she hadn't been found yet, then she was either dead or didn't want to be found, and while the latter was unthinkable, the former he recognized was a distinct possibility.

 _No, I will not give up, not until I see them or their bodies. I will protect them with my very life._ His hands gripped the steering wheel of his car tighter, weaving through the pre-rush hour traffic. He still wasn't entirely sure why he of all people had been called by L.L, the only thing related to him of any economic note was the high quality oranges grown in his lands. But L.L was an industrialist, someone who liked to be on the cutting edge of technology, besides his _only_ interest in Area 11 was finding Empress Marianne's children.

Pulling up to the building he took an empty spot by the front, and was even more pleasantly surprised to find it was paid out for another two hours. Shrugging he walked into the building and was greeted by the receptionist at the desk. "How can I help you sir?" the man respectfully inclined his head at Jeremiah's rank rather than standing up and bowing.

While technically acceptable given the situation the action made Jeremiah raise an eyebrow, as most chose to do the full bow, "I am Margrave Gottwald, I have an appointment with L.L." He said evenly, somewhat hoping the man would be difficult just for the excuse to vent his ever mounting frustrations.

"Ah, yes of course sir, just a moment please." He then reached for the phone at his desk and dialed a number, "Ms. Wright, yes the Margrave is here, of course, thank you ma'am." The receptionist put the phone down and turned back to Jeremiah, "L.L's secretary will be down shortly to take you to her."

"And how long is shortly?" Jeremiah asked, knowing all too well that 'shortly' sometimes meant an hour and a half.

"Five to ten minutes, depending on where the elevator at the moment, L.L likes things to be expedient though, so it won't be a long wait sir, I assure you."

Jeremiah nodded in approval, taking a seat on one of the various chairs in the lobby, his thoughts drifting to more recent events, namely Kewell's continued attempts to usurp control of the Purists from him, _Bah, once I find the princesses the bastard can have it, I may not like Numbers but we can't take on the world with just what we have in the homeland. Now that I think about it half of those bastards families are from the post-Napoleonic flights_ _after the E.U abolished Europe's aristocracy._ At least Villetta was loyal, really only trying to get a title to get a better life for her family. _I'd give her a barony in a heartbeat. I've even got one more or less lined up, but Old Pierre is a stubborn one, still though he doesn't have an heir and he's eighty-seven now so he won't live forever._ He'd told her as much and she was quite ecstatic and even the old man was okay with the idea, if only to deny his neighbors the territory, the only problem was he was a freak of nature that refused to succumb to old age.

His musing was interrupted by the distinctive ding of an elevator, looking over he saw a young woman carrying a tablet walking to him, heels making a noticeable click as she moved. He stood up just as she reached him and bowed respectfully, "Margrave Gottwald, thank you for coming on such short notice, if you would please follow me I'll take you to see Ms. Lamperouge."

The end of her sentence gave him pause, _No, it can't be, Lamperouge was Lady Marianne's maiden name, but she was the last member of her family save for…_ He quickly schooled his face into a neutral expression, _L.L, Leloucia Lamperouge, why didn't I think of it before? It's so obvious!_

"Of course, thank you Ms…? He realized as he spoke he didn't know her name

"Wright sir, Rebecca Wright." She introduced herself.

"Thank you Ms. Wright." He finished his earlier statement.

"You're quite welcome sir." Ms. Wright said as she led him to the elevator she'd just exited Jeremiah followed her on autopilot mentally berating himself for never thinking that the Princess might have been operating under an assumed name. Perhaps this was a way of reaching out to him? _Enough conjecture, there's no way of knowing until I see her,_ Jeremiah schooled his thoughts. "At least the elevators move at a decent speed." He mused out loud as he looked at the steadily increasing floor number.

To his surprise Ms. Wright responded, "That's Ms. Lamperouge's work, when she first took over she called the elevators 'a massive waste of time and money' and had them improved one by one, now we boast some of the fastest elevators in town."

He gave a noncommittal grunt in response as the elevator came to a stop, and Ms. Wright led him down a hall of offices, they arrived at one that seemed to have its own small lobby, with what he assumed to be Ms. Wright's work space by the door. Said secretary walked up to the door and knocked before opening it and announcing him, moving out of the way she gestured for him to enter. Jeremiah for his part felt his heart hammering against his chest and heard it in his ears as he walked through the door, all of his attention was focused on the chair currently facing window. The door closed and after what seemed to his straining senses to be an eternity the chair turned revealing to him the very image of the women he failed to protect. "You look so much like her…" it was all he could say, all he could bring himself to think through the conflicting sadness and relief, as he took her in trying to assure himself that this wasn't a dream, that she was here now.

"It's only been seven years since that day my mother was murdered, but it feels like it's been an eternity, doesn't it Jerry?" She smiled at him, a rueful smile filled with longing.

"Your highness, I… I've been searching for you for so long, please tell me Princess Nunnally… your sister, where is she, is, is she alright?" Surely if Leloucia survived then Nunnally could have too, it was a desperate thought, one that quickly died at the pure anguish that overcame the Princess's face.

"She… she died Jerry, she was killed by _Britannia_ ," She spat the word out with such hatred Jeremiah almost recoiled, before he could even pose the question of what she meant she continued, "An OSI special operations team found us, tried to kill us. After all, _father_ couldn't well use our deaths as a means to rally people to war if we were still alive. I got shot in the leg, and Nunnally, was grazed by another bullet. I…I used up most of our medical supplies on myself, I kept thinking that her wound wasn't life threatening, that just stopping the bleeding would be enough and she'd be fine, but it somehow got infected." She took a shaky breath, "I tried to help her Jerry, I tried so hard, but no one had any antibiotics, even basic things were hard to come by, oh god she was in so much pain…" She stopped, shaking like a leaf in a windstorm as she tried to hold back her tears.

Jeremiah wasn't sure when he started crying, but at some point the dam had silently broken as rage, sorrow, and self-loathing all vied for dominance in his heart. _I failed again, I was too late,_ that one thought prevailed over all else, echoing over and over again in his mind.

"Princess, I ask of you, let me help you," Jeremiah was surprised by how stable his voice sounded, "Let me be your sword, and strike down those responsible for the murders of Lady Marianne and Princess Nunnally."

That caused a shift in her eyes, a mad fire overtaking the sorrow and anguish, though she still trembled violently. "Jeremiah Gottwald, I ask you to be my sword and shield, I ask you to be my Knight, to protect me and smite down those who would oppose me as I gain the power I need to see those who have wronged my family _burn_."

The Margrave and former Guard of Marianne vi Britannia didn't care that his princess was asking him to help her overthrow the current monarch, the very idea of which was treason in and of itself, all he cared about was keeping her alive, and bringing retribution onto those who had taken away two of the brightest lights in his life. "I will protect you with my life, Leloucia vi Britannia, and I swear I will do _everything_ in my power to see justice done."

"I don't want justice, Jerry, I want _vengeance_." She said and he realized she was giving him the chance to back out, to avoid any situation that might stain his honor.

"All the better then, Your Majesty." His honor demanded justice and nothing more, but a darker part of his heart cried out for those responsible to suffer, even if the Emperor himself was among their number. Besides, by swearing allegiance to her his honor would demand he obey her will, and if her will just happened to be vengeance, then he had no right to complain.

"Thank you, Jerry." Leloucia breathed out, as the shaking began to abate somewhat. "I will be attending Clovis' ball for St. Darwin's Day, that's how we'll announce my survival to the world."

He stood up and walked around the desk/holographic display… thing, he really didn't know what to call it. He knelt by her, taking her hand in his own pointedly ignoring the tremors that racked it, "I, Jeremiah Gottwald, do swear fealty to you, Leloucia vi Britannia, above all others, I swear upon my honor that I will serve you until my dying breath, by the Grace of God and in defiance of the Emperor." He didn't know what overcame him to swear that oath, but as he finished he didn't regret it at all.

"Jerry..." she dropped off, unable to find the words to express herself and he idly noted that was the first time he'd ever seen her stunned to silence, "Thank you my Knight, though we'll unfortunately have to wait until after my debut to make it official." She gave him a genuinely happy smile, and he could see the relief in her eyes, "I hate to say this, but the two of us plus whatever Ruben can scrounge up aren't exactly a force that can move mountains, is there anyone you trust implicitly, someone we can rely upon to help us?"

He noted the 'Ruben' deciding it was most likely Ruben Ashford she was referring to, before pondering her question, if he were in charge of any battalion save the Purebloods he'd offer them up in an instant, but he knew his control was tenuous at best, the only person he trusted at all was Villetta. "Unfortunately I can only think of one such person, Villetta Nu, she's a commoner but she has a solid head, is loyal to a fault and has stayed by my side despite the Purists, less than civil reception of her. I'm going to offer her one the baronies in my lands once its current lord dies."

"I will trust your judgment." She assured him it felt good he thought to have her place her trust in him so. _No matter what, even if it costs me my life, I will not fail her. Never again._

She turned the chair slightly and picked up the picture off her desk, looking at it briefly before handing it to him. As he looked at the picture depicting his Princesses and an Eleven boy with brown hair and dark green eyes she spoke once again, "That was taken only a few days before the war, Nunnally, she was happy here, they didn't look at her like she was weak or a burden, to them she was just someone who needed a little help. Suzaku and I didn't get along at first, we were basically polar opposites, but she eventually convinced us to at least be civil with each other…" And so Jeremiah sat and listened to his princess tell him about Japan before the war, about the boy who was more a brother to her than any of Britannia's princes, and about how it was all ripped away from them one horrible day. _Suzaku Kururigi I will find you, if only to give Leloucia closure._ She began to describe the horrors of the war, and the shaking started again, that's when it suddenly hit him that she was _ten_ when this happened. He'd known it intellectually for years, but he had always naively thought she could handle it or that being found would somehow magically fix everything, now though he understood that no matter how mature she had acted, she'd been nowhere near able to emotionally process the things she'd seen. With this sudden dark epiphany the conflict in his heart was resolved, rage overcame all other contenders, he latched onto that rage, and the clarity it brought, and he saw her, he saw that the little girl who'd come to him when he was on duty in the gardens to play chess, talk about her favorite books, or just sit in the shade and nap, was utterly and irreparably broken. Then she told him about after the war, about how the Ashford family had taken her in and sheltered her, about how they went through other channels to try and regain their titles, never once trying to force her back into the Royal Family, she told him about Sayoko the maid who was so much more and had protected her these long six years. She told him about her friends at school and how despite not knowing the full truth of her life how they were among the truest friends she'd had.

Finally she told him of exactly why she was giving it all up, "They would take it all away if they could, the nobles at Pendragon, they'd do it without a second thought. I won't let them Jerry, I'll burn everything that could harm those I care about to ash. I can't pretend I'm doing this for Nunnally, she'd hate this more than anything, nor can I use my Mother as an excuse, because she would just want me to live. Jerry, I'm doing this because I can't stand the _thought_ it might all be ripped away from me, that they'd take my world away for a third time and laugh about it later. So if protecting them means that I have to go back to the vipers' nest that is the Royal Court then so be it, I'll burn the whole world and build a place Nunnally could have been happy from the ashes."

Any response that Jeremiah could have given, as he was currently conflicted between approval and pride at his Princess's resolve and worry for both her physical and psychological health, was interrupted by the phone at her desk ringing. "Five already huh?" She muttered, turning around and answering it, "Yes Gregory it's fine… tell Milly I said to calm down… yes Sayoko knows the way… No, I just lost track of time… Thank you Gregory," She hung up the phone and turned back to him. "Well Jerry, you may want to brace yourself for a slightly upset Millicent Ashford… and Sayoko, though to be honest I'm not sure which is more likely to kill us."

Let it never be said that Jeremiah Gottwald was a coward, but still on that day, he found himself praying to every god he could think of that one Millicent Ashford wasn't as much of a terror as she'd been as a child. He got his wish in a way, she was nowhere near the level he'd last seen her, she was so much worse.

* * *

 **AN:**

 **So here we are with another story, even though the third chapter of my first one is only about 3/4s of the way done, but 7,300+ words later and we're starting this thing. So you may ask, what inspired this, you know, other than Code Geass itself? Well the primary inspiration was Dauntless, but that got me thinking, what if Nunnally died and our glorious Geassing hero discarded his pride for a more pragmatic route? After all, a Prince has a much better chance of overthrowing an Empire than some random jackass in a mask. Then I read Nil Desperandum and said fuck it, fem!Lelouch it is. After that I read The Ongoing Adventures of a Princess, a Pervert and a Psychopath, and that gave me some very fun ideas, on top of just being plain hilarious. Last but not least we have The Prepared Rebellion V2, may version one rest in peace, and rereading that beautiful thing caused everything to just come together in a flash of inspiration. As you may or may not have guessed by now, this will be going in a totally different direction than the anime, sort of like most of the spin off materials only taken to Eleven… and with less les yay, probably with less les yay… I haven't really taken the time to think about romantic parings. Don't worry though, Milly is here so there will be some les yay, writing Milly and not including les yay is a sin, or something along those lines.**

 **Now you may have noticed, but I didn't give a lot of exposition that isn't directly related to the here and now in this. That's something of an experiment I'm doing right now as I noticed the first two chapters of Shattered Fate have been really exposition heavy, and the third one's looking to follow the same theme.**

 **This was actually originally going to be a time travel fic, one that had some focus on Marybell mel Britannia, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that a Lelouch with knowledge of the future can't** _ **not**_ **win, seriously he could in just the first couple of days after Shinjuku eliminate any possibility of some of his worst obstacles in the series even ever occurring. As for the excuse of "well he'd handicap himself trying to protect his friends." You're talking about a man who held the world hostage with nuclear weapons, and was implied to basically commit so many atrocities that he made Stalin, Hitler and Mao (the one Code Geass' may or may not have been named after, look the word means cat okay, the guy might have been named cat) look pleasant by comparison, if it comes down to it he wouldn't let that stop him. That little Mini Rant aside I highly recommend you read both Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion R-eset, and, as mentioned above, Nil Deperandum, both have a rather unique take on time travel conundrum I just mentioned via what essentially amounts to a combination of multiverse and chaos theory.**

 **As for the name, well… all Luluko, the other common fem!Lelouch name, is just Shirley's nickname of "Lulu" with a Japanese suffix (not accurate at all but that's the best way I can describe it… Don't judge me, I'm not a linguist) that denotes femininity tacked on to it. Now of the all the other variants it's the one you could argue is most "canon" thanks to the picture dramas. But fuck it, I don't like it, so meh.**

 **On to other things, for those of you who actually care about my Persona fic Shattered Fate, that'll be updated sometime next week at the latest. I've had finals and shit until last week and have started off the summer in the best way possible, by getting fucking sick. Ginger ale is a beautiful thing by the way and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. That statement is totally unrelated to the cough that's been more or less raping my throat by the way, nope, not related at all.**

 **Please leave a review and if you have any questions I'll be sure to answer them.**

 **Until next time.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Before anything else I'd like to apologize for how long this took to update, despite this being my laptop, my dad insisted that he and his girlfriend's profile be given administrator privileges. I let them borrow it sometimes when they need it. To make a long story short they let one of our housemates use it without asking me, and a good deal of shit ended up deleted. So this was gone with no back-ups, which is fine in the grand scheme of things because it wasn't far along, but Shattered Fate, which was much farther along, was gone too, and the backups were corrupted. So that's on Haitus if you cared and haven't seen my profile. As for this well, we're trucking on with this at the very least, so once again, I'm sorry for the wait and thanks for the support.**

 **Anyways before we start some I'll respond to some of the reviews (the ones that grab my attention) as of right before this is posted**

 **Dragon Silhouette:** Thank you and I'll try to break up my paragraphs a bit more. Also you cannot have a disloyal Jeremiah Gottwald, for he is 250% loyalty by mass.

 **Konan248:** The main catalysts for Suzaku's ascendancy into jerkdom were the Euphienator incident (better known as the SAZ massacre) and finding out that not only was Lelouch, well Zero, and ya know caused said attempted genocide, as well as being a terrorist and doing terroristy things. But it was mainly the Euphienator stuff. As for if Suzaku will keep his, literally, suicidal naivety? Probably not. Will the catalyst for said loss be enough to turn him into a jerk? Possibly, but at the very least he'll be a very polite cynic.

 **Salvare:** There will be yuri shenanigans I assure you, as for actual yuri pairings? Still haven't really decided, and personally, I hate having any sort of paring just for the sake of a romantic subplot. On the other hand I don't typically plan my stories out beyond basic plot points, so subplots and other things kinda evolve on their own as I write. The TLDR of it is maybe there will and be maybe there won't be, even _I_ don't know.

 **MadeInHere** : I can't tell you if things are going to have a significant slowdown or not, seeing as we've basically hit the ground running, but I can assure you it won't be all planning, action and revelations. As for our Heroine not getting Geass… Not gonna lie, I actually seriously considered it, but it's just not Code Geass if the protagonist can't randomly mind control people into committing mass suicide.

 **Salvare** : Okay, but with whom? Euphie? The Lancelot? Spin Kicks? The inevitable crushing realization that his hypocritical ideology necessitates him becoming the very thing he despises most in order to accomplish his goals? In all seriousness I don't know; refer to the reply to Salvare for more details.

 **Grimraven.V:** Gonna be perfectly honest here, I have no idea if Gino is even going to be a really significant character in this story. As for the paring thing, well refer to the above.

 **Ararararararagi Rage:** Thanks, honestly I worry about my grammar the most as I'm aware that my writing style can be a strange mix of modern and semi-archaic both in terms of diction and structure, so it's really nice to see people like it. As for the "For want of a Nail" trope, well the original Code Geass is arguably the result of that, personally I think it's not due to Sakuradite and the titular psychic powers that to me just make it seem like an Alternate Universe in and of itself rather than a divergent one.

As for this particular story, well there's a lot of inconsistencies about who owns what in the show and various spin offs, (An early map in the show depicting the Russian federation, well existing, despite Euro-Britannia and The Chinese owning all of modern day Russia for example), and a few things that just don't make sense within the context of the universe, like Australia, so I consider this to be more of a straight AU from Code Geass. If only because I have no idea of what the official stance on these inconsistencies actually is, so I'm going to clean them up as best I can.

 **Heika:** Good question there, I actually made a whole little lore thing for the family, odds are they will never be mentioned again in any fashion, because hey, go big or go home.

Anyways the answer is relatively simple and based off of a combination of historical knowledge, and guesstimation at what Britannia's socio-economic structure would be like. The Bellerose, minor nobility who originally came from France, spent beyond their means in an attempt to move up in society, accruing a minor amount of debt. Now when the storm hit, it hit hard, their vineyards were destroyed, house burnt down by lightening, cars totaled, and worst of all there wine was all but lost. TL;DR they got fucked _hard_ , and the one option left? Borrow more money and try to rebuild, which didn't quite work out, they managed to stay operating and keep the debt from growing but never paid it off, and lost quite a bit of prestige as, well they could barely keep their business afloat. So after Euro-Britannia was formed, they sold off their assets and moved there to start over.

And I agree, way too much Yaoi, nothing against homosexual pairings but there are just way too many forced and fucking nonsensical parings on this site. Then again, as stated before I hate purposely shoving in romantic subplots of any kind. Or blatant Romance in general, I like subtle natural evolutions of relationships, not the in your face LOOK ITS LUV, cringe that makes up ninety percent of the genre.

 **Now that we're done replying on to the story!**

* * *

Chapter two: The Knight and the Maid

Sayoko was somewhat nervous, as she and Lady Asford walked to the Red Star building, it wasn't the building itself, nor what it represented, she'd been in there enough times for reasons both innocent and not so innocent that it didn't faze her anymore. No what she was concerned about was that her charge, the girl who'd become like a daughter to her over these past six years, was in there alone with someone, telling them her greatest secret and Sayoko wasn't there to protect her.

 _Lady Leloucia, please don't let this be another foolish impulse!_

When she'd heard her mistress's plans, the Ashfords may be the ones paying her but Sayoko was only loyal to Leloucia, over the phone she'd nearly had a heart attack. Her lady's gambling addiction was self-destructive enough as it was, but going back to the Royal Family was basically painting a huge target on her back, and unfortunately the most dangerous people were the ones that Sayoko wouldn't be able to eliminate without repercussions that were equally dangerous. She reached behind her back to feel the kunai hidden there, even if the person she was meeting was a trained solider she felt confidant she could kill them should Leloucia's trust be misplaced. Her own worries slightly soothed Sayoko looked to her former mistress, even from behind her she could see the worry in Milly's tense form. Unfortunately there was nothing that could be done for it; nothing that could possibly calm her could actually be said in public.

Her thoughts moved to how odd a pair the two must look, her, a somewhat petit Japanese maid with brown hair and eyes, looking to all the world to be the very picture of serenity, and one Millicent Ashford, the buxom, tall and clearly stressed blonde haired blue eyed student of the school bearing her surname.

Such was the situation when they walked into the building; Milly moving to head straight for the elevators, even though she didn't even know what floor Lelouica's office was on. Sighing, Sayoko gently grabbed her arm and guided her to the chairs, "Please take a moment to collect yourself, Lady Ashford, I'll make sure Leloucia is ready for us." It was an excuse and they both knew it, Sayoko had the basic layout of the entire building committed to memory, and while Milly didn't know that, she definitely did know that Sayoko would never allow the younger girl to do something like this without having totally free and unrestricted access to her.

"Hello Ms. Shinozaki, if you're here to see L.L she's meeting with a Margrave right now, not the kind of man who seems like he'd appreciate interruptions if you catch my drift." Gregory said, in all honesty Sayoko liked the man, easy to get along with and totally non-discriminatory, rare traits for a Britannian.

"Of course, she called us here for that reason; do you mind calling and confirming everything though? Milly is very upset right now and needs some time to calm down a bit."

He nodded quickly picking up the phone "L.L, Ms. Shinozaki is here with a girl named Milly…"

Sayoko tuned out the rest of the conversation, instead going over to Milly to check on her, "Lady Ashford, are you sure you're alright?"

"Truth be told?" The girl asked rhetorically, "I'm absolutely terrified by what she's planning, but I know there's probably no dissuading her now."

Unfortunately Sayoko knew Milly was right, one could convince Leloucia to back down from a particularly reckless plan before she started, but once she'd set a plan into motion she didn't stop until it succeeded or failed. What made Sayoko truly worry was her mistress's lack of impulse control, while she was a veritable genius who could probably outthink almost everyone in the world and charismatic enough to talk her way out of most situations, she relied on well thought out plans, subconsciously breaking everything down into its smallest units and working up from there. Her entire way of thinking revolved around this, it just came naturally for her, and allowed her to make massive leaps in logic few others could ever follow, but she was also impulsive, more often than not the one thing she could never plan for was herself. _Leloucia can't fight, not with her leg and lack of stamina, yet she constantly throws herself into potentially dangerous situations without a second thought._

"Okay Ms. Shinozaki you can go on up." The voice of Gregory broke her from her musing

"Thank you." Milly broke in before she could respond.

"Don't mention it, and you should relax a bit, L.L can see how tense you are all the way up in her office." The jovial receptionist joked.

The two moved over to the elevator, Milly leaning against the wall, chewing her lip nervously, while Sayoko hit the button for the forty-ninth floor.

"Who do you think she could have chosen for a Knight Sayoko?" Milly asked her, "I know she kept tabs on anyone looking for her, but who would she actually trust enough to ask to be her Knight?"

"I don't know Lady Ashford, Lady Leloucia had any attempt to find her sabotaged, even Viceroy Clovis gave up a few months ago. She keeps a far lighter eye on those who gave up, in fact there's only one person who's still actively searching, one Margrave Jeremiah Gottwald." The maid answered.

"I feel like I've heard that name somewhere before… do you think she'd ask him?"

"I believe so, she has several plans listing him as a potential asset that I have been made privy to. The man is rather persistent, she's even had to ask Master Ashford's help in throwing him off the trail several times before, I wonder what drives him…" Sayoko trialed off, pondering that very question as she once more felt for the knives on her person. _I will deal with him myself should his drive for finding her be anything even slightly dangerous._

The elevator arrived for the third time in a day to its human cargo to the appointed floor. Stepping out first, as Milly had never so much as set foot in this building, Sayoko led her former charge down the hall to Leloucia's office. As they walked the maid looked at her out of the corner of her eye, _Lady Ashford loves Leloucia like a younger sister, always trying to keep her happy, trying to help her make friends in school._ The girl was indeed a surrogate older sister, constantly encouraging and prodding Leloucia into social situations, always a willing distraction for when her darker memories threatened to overwhelm her. Indeed half the reason Leloucia was as well-adjusted as she was now was due to Milly's untiring effort.

 _After everything she's been through and seen, the fact that the only real noticeable psychological issues she has are; a definitely unhealthy case of paranoia, that damned gambling addiction, and the nightmares is a miracle._ It really was, Britannia wasn't big on therapists in general, due to its views on Social Darwinism, and to make things even worse there was no therapist that could actually be trusted to help the girl, given her situation. The two came to the small lobby in front of Leloucia's office, and saw Ms. Wright typing away on her computer, the young woman briefly looked up as if she was about to say something, before noticing Sayoko and going back to her work.

Sayoko nodded to the secretary and knocked on the door to the office, before opening it without waiting for a response. This caused both Ms. Wright and Milly to raise an eyebrow; normally Sayoko was the picture of formality when it came to Leloucia especially around other people. Even Sayoko herself was surprised by her brazenness, or at least the fact she did it in front of an audience, no matter how small. _I need to calm down; acting rashly won't help convince Leloucia to abandon this foolishness._ She took a deep breath, and held the door open for Milly, closing it in a much gentler manner than she'd opened it once the girl was inside.

The maid's heart clenched when she saw the scene inside, Leloucia was slumped in her chair, totally ignoring the various holographic screens of her computer; her face screamed exhaustion even as her body was racked with occasional tremors. Turning her attention to the other occupant of the room, Sayoko saw a well-tanned man with turquois hair, his light orange irises were surrounded by puffy redness, and his face marred with tear stains. She quickly saw the picture in his hands, held with reverence as if it was the most precious thing in the world, a sentiment she deemed appropriate, though only a copy of the original kept in her residence at the Ashford student council hall that photo was quite literally Lelouica's most treasured possession.

"Hello Milly, Sayoko," Leloucia's voice brought her out of her examination of the man, though Sayoko noted her Mistress sounded just as tired as she looked. "This is Jeremiah Gottwald, you might remember him as one of the guards at Aries Villa Milly."

Jeremiah set the picture down gently before doing a full bow to the two, "I thank both of you from the bottom of my heart for taking care of my Princess for these past six years. I am in your debt."

Milly who'd seemed ready to confront Leloucia on the way, instantly switched gears, "I remember you now! Leloucia used to gush about you almost every time I visited!" She teased with a gross exaggeration.

Leloucia didn't even verbally respond, instead lightly rolling her eyes at her surrogate sister-figure. Something that worried Sayoko to no end, as her normal reactions tended to be at least somewhat exaggerated. The maid immediately went around the table and checked her charge for any signs of a fever, "Are you alright Lady Leloucia?" Admittedly she normally wouldn't be this paranoid, but since Leloucia had been alone with a person Sayoko had just met, she erred on the side of caution.

"I'm fine Sayoko; it's just been a draining day is all." The exiled Princess brushed off her worries.

"Indeed it has, My Lady." Jeremiah concurred, "Perhaps it would be better for you to return home and rest?"

Sayoko narrowed her eyes at him, once more assessing the knight searching for some hint of deceit in his eyes. What she saw was a burning rage, eerily similar to Leloucia's own, to _her_ own whenever her thoughts strayed to the monster that dared call himself a father known to the world as Charles zi Britannia. _It's obvious she talked about her sister and the war, probably why Lady Ashford hasn't pushed her to stay, that would just turn into a shouting match that Leloucia doesn't need right now._ Deciding it would be better to give the man the benefit of the doubt for now she instead turned to her Mistress. "I believe that is best Lady Leloucia, I'll make you tea when we arrive home."

"Fine, but we're going to talk about this tomorrow. Can you get off Jerry?" She asked, as she'd rather bring them all up to speed of her plans at once, and the next day was perfect as it was a Saturday.

"I'll be able to leave the base around two or three, tomorrow is mostly just paper work and arranging who won't get St. Darwin's day off." The Knight hesitated for a moment, "With your leave, Princess, I also would like to look into the whereabouts of Suzaku Kururugi, my search for you should be adequate enough cover, seeing as you stayed with his family before the invasion."

"He would be a person of interest to Britannia wouldn't he?" She trailed off, "If you find him, please make sure he's okay."

He nodded, "Of course, My Lady."

"That's great and all," Milly interrupted, "but getting back to the here and now, Leloucia is more likely than not gonna fall dead on her feet by the time we get to Ashford." The heiress' blunt declaration caused said girl to glare, though it lacked its normal venom.

"We can take my car." Jeremiah offered

Sayoko looked over at him once more, "That is… acceptable." Putting aside her own misgivings about it, she acknowledged that it would be significantly better for Leloucia to ride in a car than worry about her going through public transit in her tired state.

"Before we go… Jerry, do you know anything about my mother's murder, anything that could possibly give us a clue as to what happened?" Leloucia abruptly changed the subject.

The Knight grimaced, "Unfortunately no, however, I do know that whoever did it was either someone Empress Marianne trusted, or someone who was very close to them." He continued as all three women gave him their full attention following that statement. "The day before her murder, she ordered the guard to leave for the night, several of us naturally protested, myself and Princess Cornelia included, but she would not be dissuaded. The only times she did this was when she was meeting with a close confidant, though unfortunately I don't know who she was meeting that night."

"I can't think of anyone, according to Grandfather everyone that close to Lady Marianne ended up losing everything; my family were the lucky ones." Milly added her own thoughts to the analysis.

"Everyone save for one man." Leloucia began, "After all, how do you make the Emperor of Britannia fall out of favor?" The question was angrily bit out.

Jeremiah nodded, "Either the Emperor ordered her death, or he is connected to those that did."

Sayoko felt a cold terror wash over her when the group followed what scant but telling evidence they had to its logical conclusion. Despite the fact that she'd love nothing more than to kill the Emperor for everything he'd done to both Leloucia and Japan, she knew that he was the one man on Earth she could do absolutely nothing against. "Please, Leloucia, _please,_ don't do this. Remain here in Japan, where you're safe. He'll surely kill you once he finds out you're still alive."

"No, my father doesn't kill those he can use and my activities these past few years will make me a very tempting tool indeed. Besides, Britannia is woefully short of actually competent generals, it's the only reason he's hesitating with the invasion of Australia." She smiled a predatory smile, "Even if it means becoming something I hate, I won't be held back, I will destroy the cancer that plagues Britannia, no that plagues the entire world, and remake it anew. But even more than that Sayoko, Japan will be free."

Sayoko was stunned to silence by the declaration, even having known of Leloucia's hatred for years she still never guessed that she'd go so far.

"Australia?" Milly blinked confusedly.

"Yes, they're part of the EU in all but name, despite their vaunted neutrality, combined with the fact they're actively choking out the Royal Navy's ability to enter the Indian Ocean from anywhere but Cambodia and Area Ten in Indochina, which is itself a route easily blocked by the Chinese Federation. As well as the recent discovery of several Sakuradite deposits that they are selling to the EU at a discount and Britannia not at all, the only reason that they haven't been invaded yet is because it their coastal defenses would incur massive casualties and give the EU a major advantage in the inevitable war with Britannia." She explained, before yawning loudly.

"Well, someone's a sleepy-head, you need to get your rest young lady, otherwise you'll never catch up with Shirley and I." Milly flew back into teasing, which was her unique way of showing both concern and support, that just so happened to have the added bonus of being amusing for her.

Leloucia's glare was much more threating than the last one she'd given, though unfortunately for her it didn't have the effect she was looking for, as Milly simply matched it with mirth filled eyes and a smirk.

They held each other's gazes in a contest of wills for a few more minutes, in the end though Leloucia was the one to break, tearing her eyes away from the older girl's with a huff.

"I hate you." It was said in the light hearted tone of someone sore from a loss.

"Love you too Lulu~!" Milly sing-songed in response.

Sayoko gained a smile at the byplay; it was really a unique talent of Milly's to turn around any situation, even if it meant blowing a disproportionate amount of money on some ridiculous festival or another, nothing would stop her from putting a smile on the faces of Ashford's students, and more importantly her surrogate sister.

"Well, I suppose we should get going," Leloucia sighed while taking out her remote and opening the hidden closet in the wall. Sayoko was there gathering her discarded uniform before she was even halfway out of her chair, the maid's sudden and silent transition from one point to another caused Jeremiah to jump before looking from her to the place she'd been standing in confusion.

"How did you…" He started to question before being interrupted by Leloucia sighing.

"You do know I could have taken care of that myself Sayoko?" Light hearted exasperation tinged her voice.

"You would have taken too long Lady Lelcouia, besides; you know what the doctors said about putting too much pressure on your leg." The maid admonished her Mistress.

"Sayoko, I am not a bloody cripple, I'm perfectly capable of doing such things on my own." She stubbornly defended herself.

"Yes, but what Imperial Princess, would ever be caught dead doing such things?" Milly's teasing tone was mixed with barely contained disapproval.

The undertone was not missed by said Princess, who merely sighed and shook her head, "Let's get going I'd rather not get stuck in traffic, even if it is a relatively straight shot from here to Ashford."

At that the quartet walked out of the room, Jeremiah holding the door open, having removed the evidence of his earlier fits of emotion during the long conversation.

"Ms. Lamperouge? I've sent the response to Viceroy Clovis as per your instructions; do you want me to forward any response to you as per usual?" Ms. Wright spoke up as she saw the group start to walk past her desk.

"Yes, thank you Rebecca, and don't pull any overtime tonight, go home and spend time with Karen and Colin." She waved to the older woman as she walked down the hall towards the elevator; Milly, Sayoko, and Jeremiah in tow.

The elevator ride was made in relative silence by the group, broken only by the occasional yawn from Leloucia, as each contemplated the finality of the secretary's statement.

 _So there is no turning back, very well then, be it Japan or Pendragon my duty has not changed. I will protect Leloucia, from_ anything _that may threaten her._ Sayoko accepted that there was nothing to be done, and resolved to continue her duty to the best of her ability

Jeremiah's thoughts carried a quite similar sentiment. _Lady Leloucia, I promise this, even if it costs me my life,_ nothing _will harm you. Now then, I have a month long window, but what is the best way to go about convincing Villetta? I need to avoid drawing the suspicions of Kewell and the other Purists or I risk exposing the Princess prematurely. Suzaku Kururugi is at least an easy write off thanks to the investigation, a blessing really, as there would be no other way for me to approach him otherwise._

Milly was quickly falling back into her previously worried state. _Leloucia you idiot! Can't you see Grandfather and I are happy with you here? I don't care about the noble titles; I just can't stand the thought of losing you!_

Leloucia on the other hand, was going over her plans, already preparing to make her next move, _I need some way of influencing things behind the scenes here in Japan… Tazio and Kaguya, they should be able to at least convince the other members of the Six Houses to allow me to make my case if nothing else. I'll need to get that done as quickly as possible; I'll call Monday and see if I can't arrange a meeting of some sort._ She interrupted thoughts with another yawn, just as the elevator reached the ground floor. The four stepped out of it with her leading the way.

"I have to admit L.L that's the most people I've ever seen go up to your office at once, you normally don't let anyone but Ms. Wright and Ms. Shinozaki in there." The jovial voice of Gregory broke through the group's introspection.

"Family business Gregory, though I'd appreciate you staying quite about that. Besides, I'm sure it'll get aired everywhere following the Viceroy's St. Darwin's day ball." Leloucia said to the receptionist.

"My lips are sealed ma'am. But you finally accepted one of the Viceroy's invitations? That's unexpected." His eyebrow arched a little in curiosity.

"Well I'm pretty sure if I said no one more time the Viceroy would just send his Royal Guard to drag me to the ball." She joked with him, trying to ease her own trepidation.

The older man chuckled, as she waved to him and went out the front door, once more held open by Jeremiah.

Outside the three females got their first look at the Margrave's car, a sleek four door Phantom that was painted a dark blue with silver trim that contrasted with a black racing stripe running across the top of the vehicle. Sayoko however did wasn't appreciating the vehicles aesthetics, and was instead looking for any sign of sabotage or tampering on the car.

Leloucia had a far off look on her face as she took in the paint job of the car, the colors having taken her back to the past.

Milly's giggling broke her out of her stupor rather effectively however. "Really? You used Lady Marianne's colors for your car?"

"I originally intended to have my Knightmare incorporate the scheme, but the Purists wouldn't allow it, so the car was the next best thing." The Knight wasn't even being defensive, just explaining it as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Ohohohoh do I smell a case of hero worship… or perhaps something a little less innocent?"

Jeremiah stiffened as he began to get in the driver's seat, causing Milly to burst out into full blown laughter as she and Leloucia got in the back.

"Don't respond Jerry, that's the best thing you can do when she gets like this. And Milly, you are not to psychologically torture my Knight!" Her stern tone of voice only caused the Ashford heiress' laughter to become louder. Sayoko for her part just sighed and shook her head in the passenger seat, having seen this back and forth too many times to really be surprised.

"Ah, come on Jerry Boy, it's not all bad, I know for a fact that Cornelia shared your plight," The heiress sighed dramatically, "Oh unrequited love, such a cruel yet beautiful thing."

It's a good thing they hadn't moved yet otherwise Jeremiah's sudden tensing, much worse than his last reaction, would have led to a rather severe crash.

"You're talking about my mother and my sister Milly! Where on earth did you even GET that idea!?" Leloucia's disturbed exclamation was all Milly needed to continue

"Well, you see, when we were visiting Aries Villa one time I may have overheard a certain conversation between Cornelia and Nonette Enneagram, something about a dream involving a very comfy bed shared by the Princess and-"

"DO NOT PUT THAT IMAGE IN MY HEAD MILLY!" Leloucia's shout interrupted the scandalous story the girl was quickly becoming very immersed in telling.

"Oh come on it's not that bad, at least they weren't related; besides aren't incestuous relationships kind of the Royal family's thing?" Milly's face was lit up in amusement as she teased and prodded her fellow Britannians.

"Please don't remind me…" While extremely rare in the modern day, it was still actually acceptable for two members of the Royal Family to marry and have children, this practice rather predictably lead to some interesting defects, such as Leloucia's stamina problems.

Jeremiah seemed to take this as his cue to start driving, after he made sure everyone had buckled in of course. Milly eased off on the teasing when it became clear her target was starting to drift off, and try as she might, Leloucia couldn't resist the siren's call of Morpheus and was soon using the older girl's shoulder as an impromptu pillow.

Sayoko looking back at the two via the rearview mirror felt a smile come to her face. Leloucia and Milly's contented peaceful faces warming her heart, yet at the same time, the thought of what the future held brought conflicting feelings of both pride and worry, pride in that she was willing to take such a risk for her ideals, and worry about said risk.

"Ms. Shinozaki, is there anywhere specific I can go without drawing too much attention?" Jeremiah broke her out of her thoughts, "I've only been to Ashford once before and unfortunately the parking lot is quite exposed. Given how…" He paused trying to find the right words, "driven, I've been in trying to find Lady Leloucia, it would raise suspicions if I were seen dropping off a girl who is clearly within her age range and bears a striking resemblance to Lady Marianne, along with the Ashford Heiress."

"Leloucia and her friend Rivalz use the service tunnels to get in and out of the school undetected. The Student Council has free access so we should have no trouble getting in, the one they use the most has a public parking lot near it that is normally quite deserted." The maid sighed, "It's not ideal but it should do for avoiding anything more than cursory scrutiny."

* * *

Jeremiah listened to the maid's instructions and was pleased to note that she knew several shortcuts. He was able to avoid the stop and go traffic of the main roads quite easily, something he was quite grateful for as he didn't wish to wake Leloucia. However, even despite the various short cuts and side paths in the city it still took the better part of half an hour to arrive at their destination. As he pulled into the public lot, he noticed that true to the maid's word, nary a soul could be seen and other than a few scattered cars there was nothing to break the flat grey and yellow of the ground.

In truth, this particular lot actually did serve a larger purpose than mere public parking as a place for maintenance crews, along with military and police personnel, to have easy access to the Settlement's superstructure, not that anyone actually ever went down there save for routine checks of the tiered city's infrastructure. However that larger purpose was also probably the reason it was typically empty, people most likely avoided using it due to the off chance of getting on the bad side of a military or police officer. The irony of his own status in that equation was not lost on Jeremiah.

"Leloucia… wake up you sleepy head." The Knight heard Milly trying to wake the sleeping Princess in the back, "We're here." He heard a low grumble of a response but couldn't make out heads or tails of it, he could however, make out the soft whine of protest Leloucia gave when her human pillow pushed her off their shoulder.

Once Leloucia was awake, with much teasing from Milly about how cute she was when she was asleep, she lead the way to the service entrance, and quickly opened the door. The ease with which a teenage girl got into what was supposed to be the most secure part of the settlement bar the military bases and Viceroy's palace, even taking into account just _who_ said teenage girl was, made Jeremiah sigh.

"Someone could easily take advantage of the absolutely abysmal state of security of the Settlement's tunnels to escape any sort of pursuit, I know, Rivalz and I have had to do it more than once." Leloucia talked as they began to walk through the well-lit tunnel large enough for several Knightmares to share comfortably, "It's like Clovis is trying to get himself killed, honestly if the JLF didn't control about ninety percent of all competent resistance leaders in Area Eleven he would have been offed years ago."

"Believe me my Lady I know, I've pointed out the lax security of the Settlement several times and was rather quickly dismissed for it." Jeremiah agreed, "If I may be blunt, if the terrorists and resistance fighters of the Area weren't so incompetent themselves, the Prince's own short comings would have led to a downgrade in status a long while ago."

He paused for a second, "But what's this about you having to escape via the tunnels, Lady Leloucia?" It was a pointed question.

"Well, I go out with him and gamble against the local Nobles, that's actually how I got my start with R.S.I, and well, some of them didn't exactly appreciate being beaten by a teenage girl…" She trailed off when she saw the looks the other three where giving her, "What? It's not like I never expected that kind of thing to happen, I always have an escape route planned."

"The fact you say that so dismissively is what makes me worry, Leloucia…" Sayoko sighed resignation.

"Now, now, you can't fault our dear Leloucia, it's not like she'd ever lose in any mind game, in fact that's the reason our dearest Nina is so _absolutely_ _infatuated_ with her." Milly wrapped an arm around her shoulder, teasing grin once more directed at the younger girl.

"Please don't bring that up Milly, I still haven't figured out how to let the poor girl down without utterly destroying what little self-esteem she has." The princess lamented, "I don't even know _why_ she's so taken with me; all I did was comment on her work and have a few discussions with her."

"If I may," Sayoko said, "That's exactly why, you noticed and understood her work when no one else could, and you proved yourself to be an intellectual equal, but more than that, you went out of your way to interact with her. To someone like Nina, that's more than enough."

"Don't worry about poor little Nina, Leloucia, she'll grow out of it." The Heiress assured, "Or she'll latch onto someone else, the whole lying about being a normal student thing should be enough to break the crush, or at least make it seem like you're entirely too far out of her league to even consider."

"You're having entirely too much fun with this…" Leloucia drawled, having long since resigned herself to Milly's antics.

"But of course, my dearest Leloucia, how else am I supposed to get my entertainment?" She asked as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

The good natured back and forth continued as the group walked through the tunnel, eventually reaching a central hub for the water system, if the massive waterfall and reservoir were anything to go by, as for the most part the Settlement's water distribution system was heavily modeled off the Roman Aqueducts. The room, with its various entrances and exits could be used to get almost anywhere in the Settlement, ideal for Leloucia's extracurricular escapades.

A scant few minutes later they reached the elevator, only to see Ruben Ashford himself waiting there for them. The seventy-seven year old man with well-kept silver hair was dressed in a brown suit and red tie, an outfit that emphasized his large and muscular build, though age had started to take a toll on him years ago. His piercing blue eyes traveled over the quartet and when his gaze landed on Jeremiah they took on a mischievous gleam and a smirk grew on his lips.

"Ruben, why do you look like the cat that got the cream?" Leloucia's head was tilted slightly in curiosity.

"Oh, just reminiscing on old times, you know, Marianne was considering assigning Jeremiah here to be your personal guard. Given how you seemed to favor him over literally every other solider in her employ, save Cornelia of course." He responded, the teasing glint in his eyes matched by the jovial tone of his voice.

The Princes huffed, "Cornelia is my sister, and Jerry was the only interesting guard, not to mention the only one who was any good at chess, the others couldn't even last five minutes!"

The Knight cracked a smile at the memory of his first chess match with Leloucia.

 _Jeremiah's face was scrunched up in concentration, in the ten minutes the game had been going on, the young princess had stripped him of all but four pieces, a Knight, a Pawn, a Bishop, and the all-important King. He'd managed to do significant damage in return of course, taking a little over half of her pieces. However, the newly appointed guard knew that he had little chance of winning this match, but he'd at least managed to keep his King out of check, running a merry chase across the board the past four minutes while using the other three pieces to chip away at her ability to keep up. In truth he'd only even lasted this long because she'd sacrificed her Queen early on, using it as bait in the trap that had decimated his options in the match._

 _That had almost been the end of it as well, but he'd managed to use his own Queen to stop the intended checkmate, before sacrificing both Rooks and his other Bishop to keep her from stopping the escape. But the damage was done, Leloucia's pieces were steadily closing in, and with one more move of her Bishop he'd be in check with only way to escape, something she likely planned for. Still if he could get his pawn just a little further, he could promote it to a Queen and the situation would be vastly improved. Deciding to take the risk he moved his pawn forward, only to have her Rook take it, leaving said piece in the perfect position to get a check should he avoid the Bishop._

 _The game only went on for another six turns, before he found himself checkmated by the two main threats and her King. He looked at the timer, twelve minutes; he'd lasted a measly twelve minutes against an eight year old girl._

" _You did well." His gaze returned to his opponent, her violet eyes showing genuine approval. "You sacrificed your Queen to get out of the trap, most try to protect their Queen almost as much as the King." She nodded to herself, "That was an interesting game, Guardsman Gottwald."_

 _As she got up to leave, Jeremiah couldn't help but feel that even though he'd lost he somehow passed some sort of test._

He was snapped out of his reverie by Ruben speaking to him, "Speaking of Jeremiah, I'd like to apologize for misleading you about Leloucia's survival. We thought you trustworthy enough, but we couldn't take the risk."

Jeremiah nodded, "I understand, the more people who know a secret, regardless of how trustworthy, the more likely it is to be exposed." It was a basic tenant of all Companies, Militaries, and Intelligence Organizations that the risk of something being exposed increases exponentially with each person who knows about it. The OSI had a very nasty habit of eliminating any and all witnesses specifically because of that fact.

The group entered the elevator, and Ruben, after sliding in an identification card and inputting a code, pressed the button for the ground floor.

* * *

Sayoko did what she did best, stay silent and watch, indeed ever since entering the car most of her attention had been focused on Jeremiah, trying to astern his motivations. Seeing as even Master Ruben trusted him she'd decided that the Britannian was someone that could be trusted, if only for the time being, after all the Old Man would never do anything to put Leloucia at risk. He'd very brutally dealt with those elements of the Ashford clan that had attempted to go against his decision to shelter her in secret. No, she was more curious now, to see exactly what inspired such trust, both from her young Mistress and the Older Ashford, as neither of them were particularly trusting people.

"There is one thing Leloucia," Ruben's voice suddenly became stern, "You will not be leaving Ashford Academy without graduating."

Once again, her head tilted to the side, "But I'm only in my second year."

"Leloucia, you and I both know your attendance is only a formality, you could easily graduate and be on with your life," Ruben spoke, doing something he rarely did and putting his foot down, "And that is exactly what is going to happen, I'm giving you carte blanche to take as many days off as you need to ready for your big debut, but you are taking the Advanced Tests and passing before you leave."

"Very well, I suppose that's fair." She knew better to argue with the Ashford Patriarch when he used that tone of voice. "At least Britannia's idiotic polices of Darwinsim work in my favor in this case."

"Do you mind coming over to the clubhouse tomorrow? I want to explain everything to all of you at once." She requested.

Ruben nodded, "When exactly?"

"In the afternoon, Jerry is stuck on duty until then." She responded.

The group went back to the clubhouse that served a dual purpose as Leloucia's residence; a brief stint in the dorms had convinced them that it was better to keep her away from the rest of the student population. Too many questions about her nightmares were asked in too short of a time, and while the curiosity had waned overtime; thanks Milly using a combination of her prodigious influence over the student body, and a massive amount of blackmail to keep things relatively quiet, they deemed it too much a risk to try again.

The group entered through the ballroom entrance, and walked to the back of the overly large building and to the living area. Ruben and Milly excused themselves, though the latter insisted on staying the night and as per usual rather quickly got her way, while Sayoko retreated to the small kitchen to get the tea ready. As she set the water to boil, she was alerted to another presence by the sound of heavy footsteps. Quickly spinning around while subtly reaching for the kunai still on her person, she saw the man her Mistress had taken on as her Knight.

"Sir Gottwald." It was both a greeting and, in several ways, a challenge.

"Ms. Shinozaki," he said, "you do not trust me." The blunt statement was followed by something she honestly didn't expect. "That is good."

Her eyebrow rose in curiosity for a split second before she forcefully brought it to a neutral position.

"Most would be offended by that sentiment, Sir Gottwald, not approve of it."

"I will be blunt Ms. Shinozaki, I'm sure Lady Leloucia or the Ashfords have already informed you of just how much of a vipers' nest Pendragon is. There is simply no one who can be trusted absolutely, once we are there assuming everything goes according to whatever plan she has concocted, Leloucia, and by extension us, will never be able to fully let our guards down, even when we are alone." The Knight spoke in a tone used for telling the harsh truth.

"The duties of a Knight of Honor extend far past being a mere bodyguard, and it is likely there will be times that I'm nowhere near Leloucia by her own order. In that case it will be solely up to you to protect her, and there will be many who try to eliminate her in some way, be it politically or violently." It was a blunt admission; however what he said next shifted her opinion of the Knight.

"However, your role in protecting her is far more important than mine. I'm visible and despite my own skill, a known quantity, you are not." Once more her eyebrow rose only for him to continue, "Any plan to assassinate her will likely take me into account, and either by somehow circumventing me, or more likely outright killing me. In that case protecting her will fall to you. I failed to protect Lady Marianne, I failed to protect Lady Nunnally, but so long as I still breathe I will not fail to protect Lady Leloucia.

I know I am not invincible, and that there are many capable of overpowering and beating me. Should it come to it then I will fight to my last breath, even if all I accomplish is wounding the enemy, they will still be less of a threat by the time they get to you." It wasn't posturing or anything like that, just a rock solid statement of intent.

She looked him in the eyes noting the irony that she, a Japanese woman, was approving of one of the Purebloods. "You would sacrifice yourself in order to protect Lady Lelouca?" It was honestly a redundant question at this point but she wanted to be sure.

"Without hesitation," The response was immediate and much like his previous declaration made as a statement of absolute fact.

"Then I believe we have an understanding Sir Gottwald." Sayoko walked across the room and extended a hand to the Knight, receiving a firm handshake in return, as brown and orange irises met, both carrying a similar steely resolve.

Breaking the gesture Jeremiah spoke, "Thank you Ms. Shinozaki. It is good to know that there is someone I can rely on to protect Lady Leloucia should I fall."

With that he turned and left the room, heading for the exit rather than the sitting room where Lelouica was. Sayoko was about to question his departure before the teapot began to screech, signaling the water was done heating. Thus she became immersed in her more domestic duties as opposed to her, now more benign, curiosity about the Knight.

A few minutes later the Maid took the tea to her Mistress, who was sitting slightly turned in her chair near the window, looking out over Ashford Academy. As the young Princess in exile looked out over the school grounds, Sayoko silently moved forward, nary a sound was produced until the metallic tray was set on the coffee table. Upon hearing this Leloucia spoke without looking back, "Sayoko? What do you think of Jeremiah, honestly?"

The maid blinked, considering how exactly to answer her Mistress, before choosing the most simple and honest one, "I approve of him." Sayoko spoke as she poured the tea, noting how Leloucia's head titled as she pondered the wording.

"You approve? Not like or trust, just approve?" She asked, trying to gain some sort of insight into the kunoichi's line of thought.

"I haven't spoken to him enough to know if I like him or not, as for trust, I trust that you and Master Ashford are willing to place your trust in him." Sayoko responded simply.

Leloucia shrugged, apparently accepting Sayoko's reasoning, before taking her tea and taking a sip.

"I didn't realize until just now, exactly how much I'm going to miss Ashford… I'm not going to be able to see Rivalz, Shirley, Nina, or even Milly much, if at all, after we get started." She sighed, looking down at her lap somewhat despondently. "No more cutting class to gamble with Rivalz, no more teaching Shirley to cook, no more late night discussions with Nina, no more of Milly's festivals. These things I just took for granted, they aren't even gone yet, but I already feel sad."

Moving around to fully enter Lelouica's line of sight Sayoko spoke, "Well we'll just have to come back once everything is said and done."

The princess hummed in agreement, "Something to look forward to then."

Sayoko smiled and turned away to attend to other things, leaving her charge to gaze thoughtfully out the window.

* * *

Leloucia was in deep contemplation of her moves for the coming month and potential allies for her return to Pendragon while she sat.

 _Once I'm back in Britannia the situation will be almost entirely out of my control. Euphie and Cornelia are natural allies, and Clovis will be fairly easy to manipulate, but Schneizel is a major unknown. He also presents the greatest threat of them all, I will have no allies when I go back and he has enough clout to easily stop me from gaining any, not to mention that he can easily keep up with any plans I make. But I'm getting ahead of myself; Kyoto will probably force me to give them some immediate aid to prove my sincerity. Bah, too many variables I can't predict; still, assuming I'm able to overcome the immediate risks, the long term benefits will be well worth it._

Further plotting was interrupted by the sight of Milly walking up the path to the clubhouse, so Leloucia quickly finished her tea and went to go greet her. Just as she got to the ballroom she saw Sayoko already speaking with Milly, she assumed the blonde girl had just instructed the maid to order pizza as she was want to do whenever something requiring food for more than the strange domiciles two residents required food. _I swear she does it just because she finds it funny._

It was true as both Sayoko and Leloucia were fairly good cooks, and tended to be somewhat proud to share their food with others. Thus Milly insisted on ordering out because she found their subtle, or in Lelouica's case not so subtle, ways of protesting funny.

"Hey Leloucia, don't bother cooking I already ordered the Pizza on the way here. Oh, and here's the money Sayoko." She pulled out two bills and quickly shoved them in Sayoko's hands, savoring the small pout that formed on Leloucia's face as she spoke.

"You know that really isn't necessary Milly, I could easily cook something for the three of us, or Sayoko could if you need me for something." Unlike normal where Milly would simply tease her more and dismiss the notion out of hand, Leloucia received a pointed look from the older teen.

"I suppose you want to talk then?" She asked with a sigh.

"I did say we would be having words Lelouica vi Britannia, and words we are going to have." She put her hands on her hips and gave a stern look at the princess, looking all the older sister she proclaimed herself to be.

 _Well there's no avoiding it I guess, oh well, probably better to just clear the air now than to let it fester._ Leloucia thought to herself.

The younger of the two nodded, leading the way once more to the sitting room, this time sitting properly in her chair as Milly took a seat on the couch on the other side of the coffee table. Sayoko appeared with another tea cup, filling it and Leloucia's before vanishing just as quickly.

Leloucia sat silently, sipping her tea while waiting for Milly to start speaking, she'd already said her piece earlier and now was simply content to listen to the older girl.

"Why do you always insist on making me worry Leloucia? First you use your mother's maiden name for an alias when _your family,_ people who _know her maiden name_ are actively searching for you. Then you decide that gambling against Nobles and _Mob bosses_ for kicks is _so_ much more important than school. Or _maintaining a low profile_ , you know because you're trying to hide from the royal family, and have people _actively searching for you_."

She took a deep breath before continuing her tirade, "Yet as if _all of that_ was somehow too mundane for you, you then somehow get the bright idea to buy out a mega corp, using said illegally earned gambling money. Of course doing this with the _even flimsier_ alias of L.L, you manage to get the attention of Clovis, you know, Viceroy of Area Eleven, your half-brother, the last person you on this hemisphere you want to notice you? But I stayed quiet about all of that, if you want to remember your mother that's perfectly fine. I even put up with that gambling addiction of yours,"

Milly who'd gotten up and started pacing gave Leloucia a sharp look, "Don't you look at me like that, you're an addict and we all know it. I didn't object when you did the absolute dumbest thing I've ever seen someone trying to hide do and, I repeat, _buy a mega corp._ This though, this is just too much."

She stopped, turning on her heel to look Leloucia right in the eye, "You want to go back to Pendragon, where I might add, you have no allies, no resources, no contacts, and no way out. To the Emperor of Britannia, a man who is not only most likely complicit in your mother's murder, but who will have every right to simply kill you outright, and you want to try to overthrow him." She took a deep breath.

"LELOUCIA VI BRITANNIA WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU!?" Her voice which had not risen into above a normal conversational level suddenly skyrocketed to a shout.

Leloucia recoiled from the shout, briefly squashing down her combative instincts, before sighing and walking over to Milly. She wrapped her arms around the girl who'd been nothing less than her sister for over six years now.

"I can't do it Milly, I can't keep living this lie, Lelouica Lamperouge, gifted but lazy student. I can't keep living that life; I can't keep lying to our friends like that. Milly wearing that mask of mediocrity day in and day, it's _crushing_ me. That's why I gamble, why I play the markets, it lets me get away from that, lets me apply myself, but even then it's just another mask, another lie. I want to be _me_ Milly, more than whenever we're alone, I want our friend's to see me, the real me, I want, I want… I want so many things that are just unachievable if I stay."

She felt Milly return her hug, and buried her head in the crook of the older girl's neck, unable to bring herself to look at her face as she spoke.

"I want vengeance for Mother, for Nunnally, and for Japan. I want a world where my sister could have been happy, where no one will have to go through what I did. I want to be able to be myself, to not have to constantly look over my shoulder and lie to the people I care about most. Those things, they aren't possible here, they aren't possible unless I make them possible. You understand don't you? I _need_ to do this. Please, _please,_ understand Milly."

The desperation in Leloucia's voice was palpable as she begged for her surrogate sister's understanding.

"I understand Leloucia, I don't like it at all, but I understand." Milly softly spoke, running her hand through the younger girl's hair.

Leloucia found herself relaxing into the embrace as Milly continued speaking.

"I just wish there were some that didn't involve you being at the mercy of Charles and the Imperial Court, that didn't involve you leaving." She gave a long drawn out sigh, "I was devastated when you and Nunnally were exiled, then when I heard the announcement that you were dead, it _destroyed_ me. I cried and cried until I couldn't produce tears anymore. Then you came back, starving, sick and hobbling along using a stick, but _alive._ I was so relieved; that I didn't even notice Nunnally wasn't there, I just thought that since you were alive she must have been too."

The Princess' hold on the Heiress tightened significantly as she buried head further as if to block out the unpleasant memories.

"After that, seeing you so broken, it made me afraid that'd I'd lost you even if you were still breathing. You didn't eat, weren't responsive, the only time you showed any signs you were still you was when we moved her body. I just… I lost Nunnally, I lost everything I had before the war, I don't want to lose you too."

The two simply stayed like that for a while, Leloucia trying to process a response to reassure the older girl, and utterly failing, as none of what Milly had said about the risks of her plan were false. All she could really do was repeat her earlier assurances and even they were dependent upon the Emperor's mood.

Eventually the two broke the embrace, having mostly aired out their respective worries and burdens. They moved to the couch and began to talk about other, far more light hearted things. As the night wore on they moved on to eating the pizza and joking about Rivialz and Nina's crushes on the two. Eventually retiring at nearly midnight, they shared Leloucia's bed as the younger girl curled into the elder's unconscious embrace, and gaining a rare peaceful night of sleep from the presence of her sister figure.

* * *

 **AN:**

 **And there we go, Chapter two done. God this took forever, but sadly as noted above shit happened. And as for July, well I was in Dallas visiting my Grandmother on my mom's side and my niece. Then my other Grandmother got sick and signed a DNR, that's Do Not Resuscitate for those of you who don't know, and passed away. So that's depressing as shit. But at least she went peacefully, so small blessings I guess. So between spending two weeks worrying about Her health, mostly waiting on updates from my Grandfather and Uncle, and another five days in Dallas I didn't really get to write much. Assuming I could have scrapped together the motivation to go on a really long several dozen hour writing spree like the one the first chapter resulted from. So this was written in smaller chunks and therefore took longer, but it's finally done.**

 **So with all of that depressing personal crap I'd like to thank everyone who's followed and favorited this story for your patience. Hopefully I'll be able to deliver chapter three much faster. And further more thank all of you for the support; just knowing that people liked this was enough of a motivator to power through and get this chapter done. Though I do feel as if the overall quality of this Chapter has suffered due to aforementioned things and I apologize profusely for that. I seriously considered rewriting the Chapter but two months is just too long to update in my opinion, so unfortunately this will have to do. Though I may come back and redo it sometime in the future.**

 **Anyways moving on to the more interesting things, characterization here has been a bit tough, not because of the complexity of the characters, but because of their psychological health. You see, Code Geass' character development and psychological element is mostly dependent on other characters. Mao is obsessed with C.C. Lelouch makes C.C want to live, Euphie and the Live command drive Suzaku totally insane. Nunnally tries to be the ideal sister for Lelouch. and so on and so forth. Removing one of them from the equation, actually rather complicates things. But overall the differences for Lelouch, or in this case Leloucia, that I think make sense are as follows. They'd be much more willing to take risks, higher bets, less safe opponents, as well as being far less willing to go on with the mediocre mask, Lelouch only really did that for Nunnally's sake and to throw off Suzaku in R2. As well as being generally less inclined to find Marianne's actual killer, and more going the route of finding out who's innocent and then killing off the remaining possibilities just to be safe. Their Anger would be much more focused on Charles and Britannia as a whole, less inclined to change it, as much as getting simple vengeance.**

 **Now, the basic premise of this story is that without Nunnally being a factor Lelouch, or more accurately Leloucia, would have several more pragmatic options open to them. The important thing to remember is that they operate by the premise of High Risk and High Reward, in the series Geass simply became a crutch that allowed Lelouch to take that to massive proportions and make up for his lack of numbers, equipment, and experienced troops. This making him the foil to Schneizel who prefers low risk and far more long term plans, but I digress. In doing the gender swap it makes things slightly harder on me, as while I want to stay true to the character of Lelouch, I also recognize that with such major difference's Leloucia wouldn't just be Lelouch with boobs, but rather an extremely similar yet inherently different character. Honestly I quite like the challenge, as it is a good test of my skills, trying to stay true to both Lelouch and the inherently different development of this story. Time will tell if I am able to rise to the challenge, or if I'll fail.**

 **Anyways I've rambled enough, thanks for reading, and I'll see you next time.**


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